Dexterity - Make it do something

Seldin

Hi,

As it currently stands, all Dexterity can do at the moment is just very slightly increase your chances at dodging. That is all it does.

I currently have 16 dexterity, and when the embers were about, I reached 19/20 dexterity. With transcendant Avoidance and using Weaving (and Acrobatics in Pranks with embers), I saw practically no difference in my dodging.

So unless someone can prove to me otherwise, I would potentially consider Dexterity to be near obsolete. I deeply regret ever specialising as a Rajamalan Striker. It seems to be a complete waste of a specialisation, and the only way I can fix that is by killing myself and either using up my free reincarnation or spending a bunch of credits to buy a Dagger of Reincarnation. Hardly seems fair when the stat seems to be useless.

Now, I personally don't have many ideas on how to make the stat more viable, as I'm not sure what could be possible. Perhaps it could be something to discuss?

My primary idea with regards to making Dexterity more useful would be to have it also give a very small bonus to balance speed. Not a huge bonus, as that would potentially break the game due to potentially being overpowered. Not the best of ideas, but it's still an idea. It would actually make specialising into a high-dex specialisation do something beneficial for you. On top of that, people might actually consider buying Dexterity boots from the Artifact shop.

So, I would think it would be good to discuss potential ways to remake/repurpose the Dexterity stat to make it a lot more viable.

Agree with me or not, have at it!

 - Seldin

Beya

Doesn't it already give a bonus to balance regain? Like, a whole second?

Seldin

HELP STATS mentions nothing of the sort, and I've never heard that it has affected balance before.

4.20 CHARACTER STATISTICS

(See also HELP STATUS)

Adventurers in Achaea have four stats (or statistics):

Str - Strength     - relates to the physical damage you can deal out.

Dex - Dexterity    - relates to your ability to avoid getting hit in combat.

Con - Constitution - relates to your maximum health and endurance.

Int - Intelligence - affects your maximum mana and magical damage.

Beya

Hold on, I'll test it for you.

Satyr Knave, Dex 15. ~2500 ms balance regain after WRITHE. 

(For what it's worth, I noticed a full half a second when I specialised my race from unspecialised to Satyr knave)

Siren Sorceress, Dex 12. ~3000 ms balance regain after WRITHE.

Unspecialised Horkval, Dex 12. ~3000-4000(?) ms balance regain after WRITHE.

Someone with a better system for this should check. The only one I could clarify with any certainty is the Satyr knave balance regain. The others are by using my dodgy timestamps.

Seldin

What exactly are you doing to test it?

With 16 Dex, on using WRITHE (nothing to writhe out of), balance regain is ~0.9s (900ms).

Cooper

Dexterity does not change balance time.

My experience as a Demigod was different though Seldin. When I was a Demigod, I put up the defenses and told Tagg to hit me. About 30 combos later, he still hadn't landed a single hit.

If you have ideas, feel free to forward them to an ACC member.

Seldin

I don't have too many ideas, hence making this topic here (Potentially as a way to discuss changes that could be made)

There's a wider audience here that could provide more opinions on the matter, and any ridiculous ones can be shot down quickly anyway.

Also Cooper, keep in mind that was as a Demigod. With 25+ dexterity, not something reasonably achieved by anyone in Achaea. If there isn't any noticeable difference with easily-reached Dex stats (15/16), then I personally think it's nearly useless.

Cooper

That was to show you that your assumption that extra dexterity was wrong, and to give you an example of what it does when you reach high amounts.

Every point of dex does the same thing for you, and there is a good difference between low dex and high dex. I notice it in every fight.

Beya

@Cooper, thanks for clarifying. I second @Seldin's notion for increasing balance regain, if only fractionally.

@Seldin The satyr knave measurement is from my system's timer between actions. The others are from timestamps, which were very inaccurate. There's no way a siren is the same speed as a horkval.

Silas

High dex and trans avoidance is pretty silly against monks, but it seems kind of unnecessary nowadays given that everybody has much higher con since the race changes.

Bluef

Seldin said:

As it currently stands, all Dexterity can do at the moment is just very slightly increase your chances at dodging. That is all it does.

Agree with me or not, have at it!

 - Seldin

I agree with you, Seldin. Bluef is built around Dexterity bonuses rather than Constitution through traits, artefacts, and transcendent skills like Avoidance etc. She typically has a minimum of 17 dexterity with a good chance of nice one-point bonus on that if she's true favoured. The only difference I've noticed is that I do writhe faster, which would be useful if I didn't already have a buckawns amulet but...I digress. My balance using curses isn't any different than people with much lower dex (but I think @Cooper is right on that...I remember when its impact on balance was changed way back when) and I don't avoid getting hit any more or less than anyone else with Trans Avoidance. So if 17-19 is the high range for mortal dexterity in Achaea (someone with level three dex boots and a true favour could get there without being a demigod) then yeah..it may need some tweaking in terms of what it is capable of. 

Then again maybe it is just that we're so used to it that we don't see the awesome effects that @Cooper is talking about?

Rispok

Strongly dislike the idea of balance altering from dexterity.

Seldin

@Cooper I appreciate the clarification on how having a high dex does make a difference to dodging, but with 16 dex (probably considered high) I don't notice an incredible difference.

I don't fight as much as you though (I probably would fight more if I didn't think my stat-line was dumb and ruined because I focused dex), but I honestly don't feel anything.

@Bluef I disagree about 'being used to it', as I've played a fair bit as a Troll Mercenary with 12 dexterity, and he dodges probably about as much as Seldin does.

Bluef

@Seldin this just makes me want to jump on all my characters and randomly test how it works. Poor @Kaie. He's going to come home from work and get lambasted with HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME!!!

Sena

Whether or not one or two points of dexterity is going to make a difference depends on the accuracy of the attack you're trying to dodge. If an attack is very accurate (compared to your chance to dodge), a couple points of dexterity may not be enough to overcome the accuracy and make a noticeable difference, so the extra dexterity is pretty much useless. If an attack already has a decent chance of missing you though, the extra dexterity will have a much more significant effect. Basically, you need to pass a certain threshold of dexterity (which depends on the attack) before increasing your dexterity really matters.

Another part of why the dexterity stat might seem so useless is that you can get so much of it from non-stat sources. Weaving, trans avoidance, and speed elixir add the equivalent of 21 dexterity for example.

Sasiya

I always thought dex should be a component of the critical chance formula, mostly because it is the only stat that doesn't do anything at all for bashing. Another way to make it useful would be to make some attacks' damage scale up with dexterity as opposed to intelligence or strength.

Seldin

Garrote scaling with dex would probably be pretty awesome, I would say. More viable than strength for serpents, because Strength only really seems to affect Backstabbing for Serpents.

Although having Dex only benefit the bashing attack of one class probably isn't terribly viable? I'm not sure. That'd be up to people more knowledgeable than I.

Sena

Serpents are already the only class that gets an additional benefit from dex, since it's used for pickpocketing.

Delphinus

Pickpocketing.

Edit: Sena's dex is obviously higher than mine, because she's apparently a ninja.

Seldin

Don't get me started on pickpocketing.

Pickpocketing is an honest joke. Let's just pretend that ability doesn't exist.

Katia

Having experimented enough with pickpocket to get as infamous as you can exceptionally quickly, the skill is useless so high dex once again becomes pointless!

Though I managed to steal enough fricking shards to go build me my own icon in the desert. 

Seldin

Lets not turn this into a pickpocketing thread! As much as I'd like to rant and rave about how much people whined about theft to get it gimped beyond any form of use...

...but yeah.

I might also add that I have the Light stepper trait on Seldin, just to add to how much I'm annoyed that I don't dodge much.

EDIT: AND he's a Raja, increased dodge there too. Like that even seems to help?

Jacen

Get a mount and fight a monk, then plaugh.

Seldin

Serpents don't mix well with mounts. AFAIK we lose mounts on evade? So that's at least not at option for me.

Jacen

Beya said:

@Cooper, thanks for clarifying. I second @Seldin's notion for increasing balance regain, if only fractionally.

@Seldin The satyr knave measurement is from my system's timer between actions. The others are from timestamps, which were very inaccurate. There's no way a siren is the same speed as a horkval.

Sirens can be slower, the same speed, or faster than horkval. Substitute siren and horkval for any playable Achaean races. There is only one thing that affects balance now, and that's the Nimble trait. Every player in achaea now runs at either at the old base speed, or the old mhun speed.

Iocun

Seldin said:

Serpents don't mix well with mounts. AFAIK we lose mounts on evade? So that's at least not at option for me.

You don't need to evade against all classes, though. Evading helps little against prep-then-kill classes. It's mostly a defence against steady afflicting or damaging. The classes I evade most against are apostates, damage magi, and damage knights. I don't evade much against a monk or dragon etc., even less so against a jester.

Tvistor

High dexterity + weaving + trans avoidance + shrugging = watching all knights without huge to-hit miss like half their double delph attempts, and having the ones that work get shrugged.

I almost feel bad sometimes, then realize I'm not dead, so I stop feeling bad.

Tanaar

Then you get unlucky and get hit a few times, and die from damage. There's a reason I don't play my serpent alt anymore

Asmodron

Cooper said:

If you have ideas, feel free to forward them to an ACC member.

In other words, what he is trying to say is: If you have any ideas  feel free to write them on a piece of paper and dip it in gasoline so we can toss it in a bonfire and laugh out mockingly at the notion of improving game quality.

too much?

Cooper

Clarifying:

Unless your name is Asmodron, please feel free to forward them to an ACC member. (Tanris, Mizik, Penwize, me are just a few that will forward your ideas).

Asmodron

Cooper said:

Clarifying:

Unless your name is Asmodron, please feel free to forward them to an ACC member. (Tanris, Mizik, Penwize, me are just a few that will forward your ideas). (General people handpicked from the playerbase that we you are suppose to trust will have the best wishes of the game and players at heart).

Fixed